Before the Qing army attacked Yangzhou, Xuzhou, Huai'an and many other places were successively captured, and there were many people who surrendered, and the Qing commander Duo Duo gathered the troops and finally fought all the way to the city of Yangzhou, at this time Duo Duo commanded nearly 100,000 troops, and besieged the city of Yangzhou impermeable.
The city of Yangzhou was blocked
Duo Duo came all the way, almost did not encounter any fierce enemies, so he could not help but feel a little proud in his heart, he sent his side of the Ming Dynasty generals to surrender Shi Kefa, did not expect to be reprimanded by Shi Kefa, Duo Duo was angry in his heart that this person did not know how to lift, so he ordered an all-out attack.
The gap between the enemy and ourselves was too large, and Shi Kefa sent letters one after another to ask for help from the Southern Ming court, and at this time, the small southern Ming court was already afraid of the end, and the current imperial court could not mobilize those generals with heavy troops, and no one dared to directly confront the Qing army.
Ten days without sealing the knife
On May 25, 1645, after the Qing army besieged the city for a month, the defenders of the city were completely crushed in isolation and helplessness, and Shi Kefa refused to surrender, and before his death, he rebuked the enemy army, and then generously righteously:
I am a minister of the court, and I am willing to secretly be born as a sinner of all the worlds! My head can be broken, my body cannot be disgraced, and I wish to die quickly, from the first emperor to the ground
At this time, the Qing army used force to lay down the rich city of Yangzhou, and when they saw that the Yangzhou people dared to resist the army in this way, they were both angry and a little afraid in their hearts, and they were worried that after that, the Han people could still arouse such courage, then they would never be able to seize the whole world.
In order to suppress the local people, but also to rob the property of the area and indulge the cruel desires in his heart, Duo Duo ordered that the sword should not be sealed for ten days, and a terrible massacre was carried out against the people of Yangzhou.
This massacre is recorded in the book "Ming Ji Nanluo":
On the twenty-fifth day, ding was ugly, but the law opened the door to fight, and the Qing soldiers broke into the city, and the massacre was very tragic.
This atrocity eventually led to hundreds of thousands of casualties in Yangzhou City, the once prosperous city was reduced to a purgatory on earth for a time, the poor people of Yangzhou were in a chaotic world, and even the basic survival was difficult to guarantee, and at this time, all the civilized norms became a joke, and the social order completely collapsed.